Understanding access log columns in Nginx
The NGINX logs the activities of all the visitors to your site in the access logs. Here you can find which files are accessed, how NGINX responded to a request, what browser a client is using, IP address of clients and more. It is possible to use the information from the access log to analyze the traffic to find sites usages over time.
Default format
By default, the format of the access log columns is the following:
# nginx.conf
http {
...
log_format combined '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] '
'"$request" $status $body_bytes_sent '
'"$http_referer" "$http_user_agent"';
...
}
As you can see the columns represent the following values in order:
$remote_addr
- Address of the client$remote_user [$time_local]
- Information about user and local time of the client$request
- Request that has been sent by the client (GET,POST,PUT …)$status
- HTTP status code$body_bytes_sent
- The size of the body of the request in bytes$http_referer
- Address of the HTTP referer$http_user_agent
- User Agent of the client
-
MongoDB on Ubuntu
Here is how to install MongoDB on Ubuntu 20.04 in under 2 minutes: Step 1 - Import the public key used by the package management system From a terminal, issue the following command to import the Mo...
Guides -
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu
Here is how to install PostgreSQL on Ubuntu 20.04 in under 2 minutes: Step 1 - Update the package list on your system The first step is to update the package list on your system before proceeding t...
Guides -
Nginx on Ubuntu
Here is how to install Nginx on Ubuntu 20.04 in under two minutes: Step 1 - Update the package list on your system The first step is to update the package list on your system before proceeding to a...
Guides -
MySQL on Ubuntu
Here is how to install MySQL on Ubuntu 20.04 in under 2 minutes: Step 1 - Update package list First, update the package index on your server if you’ve not done so recently: sudo apt update apt upda...
Guides
We are hiring.
Software is our way of making the world a tiny bit better. We build tools for the makers of tomorrow.
Help us in making the internet more reliable.

Help us with developer education and get paid.
